Spell Rotation

Old screencap of the iPhone Authenticator—a terribly convenient method

A guildie asked in gchat: Did anyone else not have to enter their Authenticator code?

Um, no, I always have/do. Turned out others in gchat didn't, though. After some investigation, I came upon this Blizzard post:

If you use an authenticator – and we hope you do – you may soon notice that an authenticator prompt may not appear with every login. We’ve recently updated our authentication system to intelligently track your login locations, and if you’re logging in consistently from the same place, you may not be asked for an authenticator code. This change is being made to make the authenticator process less intrusive when we’re sure the person logging in to your account is you.

We hope to continue improving the authenticator system to ensure the same or greater security, while improving and adding features to make having one a more user friendly experience. If you don’t already have a Battle.net Authenticator attached to your account, don’t wait until it’s too late - http://us.battle.net/en/security/checklist

That's well and good, I guess, and a bit startling. I suppose it'll be nice not having to enter it all the time.

But here's the thing…

I like having to enter it. That act gives me a sense of security, knowing that the extra effort I'm putting in is worth it. If the security is invisible it seems less secure—regardless of the actual truth of the matter. Sure, Blizzard is looking at IPs and employing all sorts of eldritch magic to keep our signing-ins secure and such, but I like having to enter the code. It's real.

Mayhaps Blizzard will give us the option to always enter the code. Personally, I would like that.

(Of course, I say that now. Maybe in a week's time I'll get so used to it.)